| What next for the ICL? |
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| Written by Jim Ribbans | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 04 April 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In terms of sitting
ducks, they don’t come much plumper or more finely feathered than
India’s ‘rebel’ T20 circus: The Indian Cricket League, or ICL.
The brainchild of Indian power broker Subhash Chandra and designed for Indian television network Zee TV, the ICL popped it’s head above the parapet in May of last year in what was generally perceived to be a response to the sub-continent's wildly escalating price of television rights for cricket.
For the grizzled heads of Zee’s top brass the reasoning behind such a bold and innovative move probably went something like this: “Why pay the BCCI hundreds of millions of dollars to rent their cricket, when for the same amount of money we can create our own?”
It was an argument that made perfect sense at the time. Zee itself had just walked away from a US 275 million dollar deal with the BCCI and, in the heady madness of India’s booming media frenzy, cricket was (and is) one of the ‘must have’ properties for any serious broadcaster. All in all it was a bit of a risk, but if it paid off everybody would come up smelling of roses. So in due course the big names were wheeled out to lend the concept some credence, forty four of India’s less fortunate players were lured away from the Ranji treadmill and a few international stars were snapped up to add a touch of sparkle to proceedings. And then…like a bad tempered giant waking from its slumber, the BCCI fixed a bleary eye on Zee’s fledgling initiative and vowed to grind it into the dust. Initially the Indian Board’s response was a litany of increasingly shrill calls for the ICL’s ‘rebels’ to be banned from all ‘sanctioned’ forms of the game as well as an appeal to the international community to impose the same harsh strictures on their own wards. This was followed up, in September of 2007, by the announcement of the BCCI’s very own cash cow: the Indian Premier League (IPL). And eight months on, without a ball even being bowled, the BCCI’s own league already looks a better long term bet than its ‘rebel’ cousin. Given full access to the game’s major players, backed by some of India’s most bankable stars and wielding the kind of financial clout most often associated with sports like football and basketball the IPL seems to be holding all the aces. So what happens next? Will Zee’s multi-million dollar gamble collapse like the proverbial house of cards? And can India’s love for all things cricket support two rival, but essentially similar, leagues? Perhaps most importantly, if the ICL does fold, what happens to the forty four Indian ‘rebels’ who have so far received short shrift from the men that run the Indian game? In recent announcements the ICL appears to be looking to ‘elevate’ itself (for want of a better word) above the purely domestic structure of its rival by touting an ‘international’ tri series between Indian, Pakistani and World Elevens. It’s a move that seems to smack somewhat of desperation, a last gasp effort to ape the very structure that the ICL was designed to challenge and one that again seems destined to fail. Perhaps though Zee’s brave new world does offer an insight into what the future of cricket may hold: any phoenix that gets caught in the crosshairs of the BCCI is sure to get shot down in flames.
(Click here to know more about Jim)
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